Elise Müller

Elise Maria Müller (born September 15, 1782 in Bremen ; † December 30, 1849 there ) was a German pianist, piano teacher and composer.

biography

Elise Maria Müller was the daughter of the music writer and cathedral cantor Wilhelm Christian Müller (1752–1831) and Maria Amalia Müller nee. Buken. Her brother was Adolph Wilhelm Müller (1784–1811). Both children received music lessons from their father and were able to play the piano at the age of four. They took part in the regular house concerts. Her first public concert took place in 1792 when she was 10 years old. After an accident when she was a child, Müller was permanently disfigured and had to interrupt her music lessons at times.

In 1804 she opened an educational institution for girls in Bremen , where she taught geography, history, music, grammar, French and English. She continued to perform publicly as a pianist. The Allgemeine musical Zeitung reported in 1807: “Among the amateurs, two women stand out on the pianoforte, who have played concerts several times; namely: Mad. Sengstacke [Christiane Grund, m. Sengstack ] and Dem. Müller. Both of them play with ease, confidence and expression ... They both seem to adore Mozart's and Beethoven's most wonderful things. ”In 1807, at a concert in the Bremen stock exchange , she also played the violin. She seems to have been composing for the first time since 1804, and in 1817 Senator Johann Georg Iken (1786–1850) reported on her compositions. But her strength remained the game.

In 1814 she and her father visited Goethe in Wiesbaden and in 1817 she sent him four settings, which he considered to be "weak". In 1815 father and daughter as well as the composer and cathedral organist Wilhelm Friedrich Riem were involved in founding a Bremen Singing Academy. The students from her school were active in the singing academy. In 1820 she had to give up the educational institute for health reasons. In the same year she was in public for the first time as a composer of songs. She admired Ludwig van Beethoven as a composer . In 1820/1821 father and daughter visited Beethoven, Andreas Streicher , Nannette Streicher and Gioachino Rossini in Naples on their travels to Austria, Italy and the Netherlands . After the visit, the Müller and Beethoven wrote each other more often.

After 1821 Elise Maria Müller taught only rarely. In 1833 she was barely able to play the piano due to an illness in her hands. From the 1830s until her death she was friends with the chronicler Karl August Varnhagen von Ense through extensive correspondence. In 1837 Robert Schumann corrected and published songs by her. After that, she sent him several compositions, but received no more replies. In 1840 she met Clara Wieck ( Clara Schumann ) in Bremen and in 1842 Robert Schumann personally.

Elise Müller preferred to play works by Beethoven, Wilhelm Friedrich Riem , Louis Ferdinand of Prussia , Mozart , Anton Halm and Johann Nepomuk Hummel . Her father described her as a "pianoforte player of Beethoven's works". Friedrich Wellmann said in 1914: "Elise Müller later became the best piano player in Bremen alongside the famous Madame Sengstake." Most of her compositions and her song texts were lost in later years.

In her will she donated, among other things, the Elisen Foundation for the well-being of needy maids and also gave consideration to the Great Women's Association of 1816 in Bremen.

Literature, sources

• Sibylla Bösenberg: Elise Müller's life story. In: Nikolaus Gatter (ed.): Macaroni and spirit food. Berlin 2002, pp. 41-47.
• Bernhard R. Appel : Robert Schumann and the composer Elise Müller. In: ders. (Ed.): "Neue Bahnen". Robert Schumann and his musical contemporaries. Schott, Mainz 2002, pp. 41-57
• Anja Herold: European instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries. In: Sophie Drinkler Institute, 2009.
• Klaus Martin Kopitz , Rainer Cadenbach (Eds.) A. a .: Beethoven from the point of view of his contemporaries in diaries, letters, poems and memories. Volume 2: Lachner - Zmeskall. Edited by the Beethoven Research Center at the Berlin University of the Arts. Henle, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-87328-120-2 , pp. 600-613.
• Romina Schnitter: Müller, Elise. In: Women's story (s). Edited by the Bremen Women's Museum. Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0
• Axel Schröter: Under the spell of Goethe. To the song compositions by Elise Müller. In: Christian Kämpf (Ed.): Wilhelm Christian Müller. Contributions to the music and cultural history of Bremen around 1800. Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-944552-88-0 , pp. 208–222.